1. Field of the Invention
The present application relates generally to managing software use, and more specifically to systems and methods to enable the monitoring and adjusting software usage under a software license.
2. Description of the Related Art
A common capability of digital product license systems is the ability to control how many devices are allowed to be used with each product license which is usually sold to an individual customer or company. For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,490,216 refers to a system where a license is given to an individual, but in turn that license is linked to a specific personal computer thereby limiting the copyright holders exposure to copyright abuse if the user decided to share their license with other unauthorized users.
A problem that has arisen over time is the fact that consumers of software have normal patterns of use that include the installation and use of digital products on multiple devices. For example a person may wish to buy software and use it on three computers at their home, a computer at work, a mobile computer and the computers at their holiday home and their parent's house. In addition to these uses, computers are also bought, sold and replaced so over time maybe two or three times this number of computers may be used by the user over time with a legitimate need to install and use the software on every computer.
Publishers of digital products have a dilemma in that they may want their customers to receive the normal freedom to use the software that they have purchased but they also do not want the software licenses to be freely shared amongst end users or even in worst case shared anonymously over the Internet resulting in massive piracy and copyright abuse of the product.
To solve this problem some publishers have set a relatively high device to license ratio in their control systems in the hope that customers will not exceed the maximum number of devices per license. An example of this is Apple iTunes which enables customers to play a purchased music file on up to a preset number (e.g., five) of devices (e.g., PCs) per license before being requested to buy an additional license. They have also implemented a system that allows customers to turn off the license rights of individual devices with regard to a specific music file license and therefore free up that device installation so that the music file can be used on one additional device.
While this method does go some way to appeasing the problem of a normal customers usage expectations, it does not take into consideration the normal attrition that occurs with the purchase and upgrade of personal computing devices or the like and places an expectation on the user to go through a number of involved steps to retain their rights to use the software. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved technique for allowing for a changing number of device installations on a per license basis over time.